A Very Important Part of My Past

"I realize that there is something incredibly honest about trees in winter, how they're experts at letting things go." Ginny Rometty

It is not unusual for my wife to say something profound. Although she seldom sets out to say something profound, she quite often does so anyway. That was certainly the case earlier this week.  She picked up a piece of paper with a phone number on it and asked me if I was going to call this lady regarding her loss of a significant person and I said, "No, I don't think so. Are you?"  She looked at the scrap of paper, then looked at me as she was throwing it away and said, "No. She was a very important part of my past."

Just like that. Presto wham o, she explained something that I had been feeling for the past few days. It would actually be more accurate to say something I had not been feeling.

My grandfather bought a small house on Laguna Beach, Florida several  years before I was born.  This small two-bedroom house we called "the cottage." The house was remodeled several times and my great aunt bought and   annexed another small rental cottage to it to become quite a large beach house. We affectionately called that annexed  house "the Holiday Inn". The most recent newlyweds got to stay there.  Now the cottage could easily sleep 25 people. Until my family sold that house some years ago, it had been in the family over 40 years. The house is located just across Highway 98 from the beach.  To spend time on the beach, we only had to walk out the side door, cross the highway and we were on the dunes of Laguna Beach. We then walked/ran/stumbled down the sandy path to the white sands and the Gulf of Mexico.  Various members of the family at various times of the year would use the cottage. But on the fourth of July the entire clan of my parents, siblings, grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins converged for a long weekend. This weekend included much time together in the cottage, much time on the beach, much time water skiing at Phillips Inlet, much time fishing with Dad on West Bay and much good food  and laughter.  Have you ever heard of "beach toast"?  My mother made beach toast which you can only make at the beach.

For reasons I have never completely understood, nearly 20 years ago my mother and her sister sold the cottage to complete strangers.  As far as I was concerned, the cottage was gone. I certainly grieved the financial impact to the family but I mostly grieved the personal loss. All those people would never be in the same time and place again.. Significant funerals have brought many of us together, but never all of us. A significant relational rug had been permanently pulled out from under me.

But over the years my grief for that place has been replaced by the grief for those people. Most of them are dead and gone--my grandparents, my parents, my aunts and uncles are all gone  All but one of my cousins are still alive and we're next up. Even if we still owned that house, there would be no 4th celebration on that scale; there would be no beach toast, only my mother could make that.

I didn't realize that I had made complete peace with that time and place until last week.  My wife and I stayed in a condo less than a mile from that house.  I considered driving by the cottage and decided that I didn't want to or need to. To get to the beach from our condo all we had to do was take the elevator down fifteen floors, walk out the back door through a gate and we were there.  The water had never been more beautiful, the sand more white and clean,  and the sunsets were divine. The blue/green gulf water didn't know the difference between the cottage and the condo. I felt perfectly at home. Did I miss that house?  Sure I did.  Did I miss all those people?  Sure I did. But what I had was so much more than what I had lost.  What I wasn't feeling was much more important than what I was feeling.

Although her loss was great, and the relationship had been meaningful, neither of us called that lady who had been a good friend. "She was an important part of my past."  As important as it is to connect and reconnect, as much as it matters to "be in touch" with people from our past, it is much more important for us so spend time with people who are a significant part of our present. We can learn a lot from trees.